


take me home

by TripsH



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Moving In Together, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24415639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TripsH/pseuds/TripsH
Summary: There’s something simple—mundane, even—yet romantic about budgeting money to pay bills and signing your name on mortgage papers with the person you have every intention of spending the rest of your life with.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 24
Kudos: 201





	take me home

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: iwaoi just won’t quit 2k20 
> 
> I wrote this on a whim while listening to lover by taylor swift. I'm not sure how it broke 3k but??? Sometimes all you wanna do is listen to love songs and think about your otp so that’s the life choice that got me cranking out majority of this on my phone. Honestly, though, the lyrics _can I go where you go? can we always be this close?_ literally just scream iwaoi to me to the point it physically pains me and i’m a huge baby who loves Soft things so i have no regrets 
> 
> I still haven’t read haikyuu beyond where I left off in 2015 (I started rereading from the beginning and am making an effort to slowly but surely catch up now!) but the general concept of this fic is going off the idea of oikawa returning to japan because I love long-distance relationship yearning but also the concept of reunions and returning home, so yeah this happened and I wrote it so quickly I couldn’t stop myself. Writing iwaoi has been my saving grace during quarantine tbh so i'm just rolling with ideas as they come to me. i have a few bigger projects in the works (one of which i'm close to being done with) that i'm hoping to post soon too
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!

The airport is surprisingly quiet for the early evening, relatively empty besides the few people bustling to catch a flight or those lingering around waiting for someone to arrive, lighting up when they see their loved one come around the corner and run over to greet them with a tight embrace.

Just a little bit longer, and that will be something Iwaizumi can participate in as well. No longer just waiting around, anticipating Oikawa’s arrival, the first time they’ll see each other in person again after months apart.

They’ve navigated their way through a few years of distance, long stretches apart and quick, fleeting moments of time together before one of them has to leave again. And it’s been like reaching for something you can never quite grab to hold within your grasp. His fingers brush against Oikawa’s, but any time he’s in Iwaizumi’s grasp, he’s gone a few days later—back to square one of texting and navigating phone and video calls through time differences and their busy schedules.

Sometimes, when they’re apart and Iwaizumi closes his eyes, he can vivdly remember the mornings they have spent together when he’d finally see Oikawa after months and months apart. They’d sleep in the same bed, sun shining, warm as it spills through his window in the early morning, but nothing could make him warmer than their close proximity as if there was never meant to be any space between them—Oikawa’s hands on him, Iwaizumi’s arms around him, his fingers twined through Oikawa’s hair and their foreheads pressed together as they laughed about something together.

Missing those types of moments when they only experience them in quick bursts of time is commonplace, a lingering ache of longing for something, for someone when you’re never completely certain of when you’ll see them next.

There’s something else that comes with being so far apart too, something a little heavier than just physical and emotional longing. Doubts, insecurities. Questions: _do you still want this? do you want me? is this too much? can we make it? are we holding each other back by holding onto this?_

It’s gotten easier to avoid thinking like that over time, but they’re feelings that never totally go away.

Really, it _sucks_ when everything Iwaizumi’s ever wanted, the most important person to him in the whole world is a picture on a screen in front of him, unable to be touched, impossible to hold. He and Oikawa have had to work to learn that being so physically far apart means touch and actions aren’t forms of communication that can solely be relied on like they could when constantly in each other’s space their entire lives. Instead, honest words, talking things through, and verbal reassurances or declarations of feelings become much more weighted when dealing with a huge stretch of distance for an extended amount of time.

(Once, Oikawa had tearfully admitted after a hard day that he’s afraid he’s holding Iwaizumi back from something better, forcing him to muddle through a few years long romantic relationship where they’ve spent more time physically apart than together.

But they’ve been best friends—together, side by side their entire lives, and distance doesn’t just erase that. It doesn’t wipe away how much they love each other. Besides, any time they’ve ever stood in front of something that may seem impossible, they’ve always taken it on together, at each other’s sides, supporting each other. Some distance has _nothing_ on that, a bond they’ve spent their entire lives building between them.

While Iwaizumi’s lying on his side in his bed, phone laid out before him in a way that almost mirrors lying in a bed together, it’s early morning for him and late at night for Oikawa, only further reminding them of the long stretch of space between them. The sun filters through his window while Oikawa’s room is dark besides the dim lights he has on. Right now, the next best thing he’s got to touching Oikawa is to press the phone to his forehead in a mock simulation of pressing his forehead to Oikawa’s, and sometimes when he closes his eyes he can imagine it, can pretend they’re together, vividly remember when they have been, tangibility that’s imagined instead of reality. 

“You’re it for me,” he’d said back then, voice level in an attempt to sound casual when he says it, but really, how do you sound casual telling your best friend he’s your whole world, that you want to spend forever with him? “I love you, Tooru. That’ll never change. You could be five minutes from me or across the world and I’d tell you the same thing over and over again.”

“Me too,” Oikawa whispers, voice thick with emotion. “ _God,_ Hajime. Me too. I love you. _I love you too._ ”)

They’ve both felt that way sometimes—insecure, doubtful, afraid. And they’ve both had to work through it, separately and together over the years.

But they’ve gotten through every hardship brought on by distance together. They’ve made it work, despite the lingering fear it wouldn’t. And every difficult moment in the years leading up to now has been well worth it if _this_ is the end result they’ve been building up to for years—

(“I’ve been thinking about playing in Japan. About coming back in a few months.” Oikawa’s laptop is balanced on his knees. He fiddles with the sleeve of his shirt, like he’s trying to give his hands something to do as he speaks, long fingers twisting around the fabric. “Thought you should be the first to know, Iwa-chan.”

“You’re… you’re coming back?”

He nods, lips curled into a smile now that the news has settled between them. “I’m coming home, Iwa-chan.”

Home. The word, the concept settles into the silence between them. Any time before this, it’s something that’s seemed far out of reach. But now the idea is right there, for the first time, something to wrap their fingers around and hold between them. _Home._

“Yeah?” His heart thumps against his chest, and thankfully his voice isn’t caught in his throat as he speaks his next thought, the choice his heart had immediately led him to the moment Oikawa said he’s coming back home after so much time. “You give any thought to where you’re gonna stay?”

Oikawa shrugs, but he looks like he knows where this is going, where it’s always been leading to. “Don’t know yet. I can get an apartment or…”

“Wanna move in together?” Iwaizumi asks, unable to contain the idea any longer, to keep something meant to be shared between them just to himself. “My lease is up in a few months anyway. We could…”

Oikawa’s smile isn’t nearly as bright as it is in the flesh, but this one is just as good. “I was hoping you might say that,” he confesses, quiet, soft even though there’s no one else around. Just them speaking to each other over skype on their laptops. “I’d love that.”

It’s not a shocking development in their relationship. These few years apart, they’ve really just been building their own lives while separated from each other, distinctly their own, but always with an open space for the final piece of the puzzle to fit right back into place. No dramatic pretense, no huge fanfare or buildup. It’s just a known fact that no matter where they go or how much time they spend physically apart they’re still important, foundational parts of each other’s lives. A permanent fixture.

“So then let’s do it,” Iwaizumi says, an equally quiet punctuation that settles the suggestion into place as something they both want, the next step they’re going to take together. “Let’s move in together.”

And Oikawa nods, eyes a little glassy, like he’s holding back tears now that the idea is right within reach, a future they can grasp onto. “Let’s move in together,” he repeats.

After all this time, it’s what they deserve.)

House hunting with someone living in another country has been an experience that’s involved many texts and pictures sent back and forth and a lot of FaceTime calls. But the whole process has been shrouded in this air of excitement, anticipation. They’re going to be together in one place—permanent, forever—from this evening onward.

It’s strange to think that they’ve never had their own space together. They transitioned from their childhood homes to their own apartments, separate but connected by the one fact that home isn’t about where they physically are staying. It’s about being together. Home is when they’re with each other.

There’s something simple—mundane, even—yet romantic about budgeting money to pay bills and signing your name on mortgage papers with the person you have every intention of spending the rest of your life with.

But the fact that he’s got a key in his pocket to _their_ place, their home, the matching key sits on their counter, waiting for Oikawa to claim as his own when they arrive there later this evening is this most exhilarating thing he’s thought about in the months since they’d decided to do this.

His phone buzzes with a notification, his attention snapping back to the text he’s just received from Oikawa.

_Getting off the plane now. I expect the best hug I’ve ever had in my life in a few minutes <3_

The text draws a laugh out of him, but his heart also races in anticipation, just like it always does when it’s been months since he’s last seen Oikawa in person. This time has months of buildup behind it as the first time there’s no time limit placed on how long they have together before one of them has to leave again. In just a few more minutes, they’ll have all the time in the world together. 

He texts back a quick, ‘ _Okay, I’m gonna hug the hell out of you. See you soon <3_’ and clicks his phone off. The lock screen catches his eye, distracting him like it often tends to. Oikawa stole his phone one evening they were together, easily guessing the passcode and changing the picture to one the two of them took on the beach, the sunset behind them—a selfie where Oikawa’s arm is thrown across Iwaizumi’s shoulders, their smiles bright as they’d pressed themselves close together.

(“Can’t forget me if my face is the first thing you see every time you pick up your phone,” Oikawa had said before tossing the phone aside on the bed, his interest flitting back to Iwaizumi instead of fucking around with his phone.

“We’ve been friends our whole lives. I’m not gonna forget what you look like, moron,” he’d teased, fondness curling around the words, settling between them as Oikawa flops down against Iwaizumi’s chest, Iwaizumi’s fingers tangling in his hair.)

He’s never had the heart to change the picture. And while the notion he’d forget Oikawa in their time apart is a silly one, he’s fine with admitting to himself that Oikawa’s at least _partially_ right. It’s nice to have his boyfriend’s face be the first thing he sees every time he picks up his phone.

 _God_ , he’s got it bad. But he’s known that for a long time. Years and years, really, even before they’d confessed their feelings to each other in high school. As Oikawa’s older sister always likes to tease, it’s been writing on the wall for years, a fully expected development to many outsiders in their relationship. Even if it hadn’t been so obvious to the two of them at first and they’d spent a good while afraid to say they loved each other in fear it would damage a lifelong friendship.

Now, with just a few minutes the only thing left keeping them apart, time seems to tick by slower than before.

Just a few more minutes.

He’ll have Oikawa in his arms in just a few more minutes. 

And after those few minutes finally pass by, the moment Iwaizumi catches sight of Oikawa when he walks around the corner, he’s bounding across the airport to reach him. Oikawa does the same when he sees Iwaizumi. They reach to meet each other in the middle, just like always, jet lag and exhaustion and time zone differences be damned. Nothing’s keeping them from this, the very last time they have to rush to see each other in an airport after months and months apart.

The smile that lights up Oikawa’s whole face is a sight he never wants to forget, Iwaizumi thinks as he crashes into him in a tight hug, so happy to see him that he sweeps him off his feet and into his arms, squeezes him like he never wants to let go.

He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to let go. Not now, not ever. Tonight they’ll spend the first night of their lives as a couple who has moved in together under the same roof. From now on they’ll no longer have to distinguish between my place and your place, temporary spaces for quick, fleeting moments in time. Now it’s just theirs. Their home. Permanent. They’ll have a home together.

Oikawa laughs, loud and elated, right in his ear, so close after so long spent apart. If they weren’t in the middle of people passing by, he knows Oikawa would wrap his legs around Iwaizumi’s waist, cling to him tightly like he’d done so many times when they were children.

“Hey, Iwa-chan, people are staring,” Oikawa says after a few moments, forehead pressed against Iwaizumi’s shoulder. There’s a tell-tale wet spot on his shirt from his tears.

 _Who gives a fuck?_ Iwaizumi wants to say. None of those people looking at them have spent years in a massively long-distance relationship with the love of their life. But he concedes a little, lowering Oikawa back to the ground. They can hug like this too. One moment a loud declaration, the next a quiet sway.

“Told you I was gonna hug the hell out of you,” he says when they pull back slightly, fingers brushing against Oikawa’s cheek. They’ve never really been huge on public displays of affection like this—more in the mindset of if it happens, it happens—but today is different. Today is the start of the rest of their lives together. “Welcome home,” he breathes, quiet but certain.

“I’m home.” Oikawa leans into the barely there press of Iwaizumi’s fingers on his cheek, savors the brief moment of contact and god, Iwaizumi thinks he’s never loved someone so much. That he’ll never love someone this much. It’s always been Oikawa, only Oikawa who has Iwaizumi’s heart in his hands like this.

After a few more moments, they finally pull apart, no matter how much they don’t want to break the contact between them just yet.

“So, was that up to par? Best hug you’ve ever had?” he jokes, pressing his hand to Oikawa’s shoulder, squeezing gently, a gentle thread of lingering contact.

Oikawa makes a show of considering it, thoughtful, before he says, “Yes, but I think I _definitely_ deserve more than just a hug. You gonna pay up?”

He laughs. “Oh, I will. Soon as we get home, yeah?”

 _Home_. The word settles between them, perfect, right.

“Yeah,” Oikawa agrees, and even as he nods, Iwaizumi can see the emotion in his eyes, can hear the way his voice hitches a little, choked up at the prospect that this is finally, _finally_ theirs. “Let’s go home.”

Let’s just say it’s a hard-fought battle to keep their hands off each other as they get Oikawa’s stuff and on the ride back home.

But really, when you’ve spent months and months for a few years without the touch you positively crave readily available, a tiny stretch of time on a ride back home is nothing. Soon enough, they’ll have each other all to themselves. _Forever._

* * *

Oikawa practically drags Iwaizumi inside when they finally arrive at the house, wide awake now even though he had been falling asleep on the ride back. “Hurry up, Iwa-chan! I’ve been waiting _forever_ to see.”

“Okay, okay. I almost liked you better when you were sleeping.” That comment earns him a slap on the shoulder. He laughs and grabs his set of keys, goes to unlock the door without protest—he’s been waiting for this moment as long as Oikawa has, after all—and pushes the door open, stepping out of the way with every intention of letting Oikawa step inside first.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for Iwaizumi’s hand, curls their fingers around each other. _Together?_ the touch asks.

Yeah. Yeah, there’s really never been any other way, has there? He grins at Oikawa and squeezes his hand, his answer. _Let’s go._

So they step into their home for the first time as a couple, hand-in-hand.

Iwaizumi drops the bags he’d helped carry in, squeezes Oikawa’s hand as they stand in the doorway of their home together for the first time. “You like it?”

This whole thing is a little bit of a different experience for Oikawa, he’s sure. Iwaizumi has been in here multiple times already. When he’d first looked at it in person after they’d picked it out online together, sending pictures to Oikawa to confirm this is the house they want for themselves. When he’d _also_ had to pull up FaceTime on his phone so he could take Oikawa on a tour of the house that way. When he’d moved in at the beginning of the week prior because his own lease on his apartment ended.

Oikawa’s never been here in person. He’s only seen it through pictures and the FaceTime tours they’ve done together. He signed all the papers online. He doesn’t have his own set of keys in his hand yet.

His fingers slip from Iwaizumi’s grip as he steps further inside, takes it all in.

It’s still a little empty, lacking some personal effects because it hasn’t been lived in by the both of them yet. It’s basic, but theirs to make their own space, pieces of them both filling a house to make it a home. _Their_ home. 

“Tooru?” Iwaizumi steps closer, rests his hand on Oikawa’s back as he stands by his side.

“I love it.” When Oikawa turns to look at him, eyes watery with tears, he pulls Iwaizumi into a hug. “I love _you_.” His hand brushes against Iwaizumi’s face as he leans in to kiss him.

And as much as he wants to get lost in it, there’s still one thing left to do.

“Wait, hang on.” He pulls back, presses his hands to Oikawa’s shoulders. “Gotta give you somethin’ first.”

“Mood killer,” he hears Oikawa mumble as he turns to walk away. Iwaizumi sticks up his middle finger over his shoulder in response, Oikawa slapping at his hand as he follows closely behind him. 

“Here.” Iwaizumi grabs the key off the counter, presses it into Oikawa’s hand. “It’s officially ours now.”

“Yeah.” Oikawa looks down at the key in his hand for a moment before he closes his fist around it, sets it back down on the counter in favor of turning his attention back to Iwaizumi. _“Ours.”_

This time, when they lean in to kiss, Iwaizumi’s got his full attention on his best friend in front of him, pulls Oikawa in, lips covering his own. Oikawa’s hands wrap around his back, fingers digging into his shoulder blades as he squeezes Iwaizumi tightly. Pulls him closer and closer and _closer,_ electricity building and building with every searing touch, every brush of their fingers and kiss of their lips.

They’ve got all the time in the world. But he doesn’t want to waste even a single second of forever now that they’re experiencing it together.

* * *

When they wake up the next morning, together in bed, Iwaizumi pushes his fingers through Oikawa’s hair, brushes it off his forehead in a gentle touch. For the first time, there’s no lingering thoughts in the back of his mind about the next time they’ll have to say goodbye. Right now, he’s only thinking about what’s in front of him.

“You’re looking at me like this is everything you’ve ever wanted,” Oikawa whispers the teasing comment, voice still a little rough from sleep, eyes bleary. He smiles, bright, happy. Even with the morning sunlight spilling into the bedroom through the window, he’s still the brightest presence Iwaizumi’s ever seen. Beautiful. Perfect.

“Maybe it is,” he says with a laugh, and pulls Oikawa closer, back into his arms. _You are._

**Author's Note:**

> whenever I write iwaoi i’m always like wow I can’t believe they invented True Love


End file.
